Posts Tagged ‘violence’

I just want to make it clear that nothing of this nature has actually ever happened to Cami. She’s not known for cracking skulls at the concession stand.

However, that’s not to say the theater staff wouldn’t try to make a pass at her. Cami is hot. I mean, like, totally hot. Part of your brain stem would have to be missing not to make a pass at her.

As I write this, she is sleeping. She cleaned the bathrooms tonight while I dinked around with today’s strip. For that, and so much more, she is awesome. She is beautiful. I love her.

Now, collectively… “AWWWWW…”

But it’s true.

By the way, did you know that you’ll actually get a chance to SEE what she looks like in the Theater Hopper Documentary? This is what we call “building suspense”. I know you’ll all be very pleased when you have a copy of the film in your hot, little hands. Soon, young Padawan Learner. Soon. Stay tuned here for more.

I was hoping to have my review of Punch-Drunk Love up and ready to look at today, but I was putting up shelves in the basement earlier this evening. I guess it’ll just have to wait.

Funny how I can go from topical subject matter to over-the-top slapstick in just one day. When you can’t come up with the funny, lunge for the jugular, I always say. In this case, literally!

Of course, today’s strip means nothing if you haven’t seen Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets. However, considering it’s $87 million dollar haul over the weekend, I have a feeling I’m pitching to the majority right now.

There will be more news later this evening, but right now I am very tired from a night of bowling (and drinking). Be sure to come back to the site after 6PM tonight to learn more about the nominations Theater Hopper received from the Webcomic Choice Awards.

Today is the day of the big California recall election. If you’ve been watching the news, maybe you’ve heard about it.

I don’t know how much I can add to the cacophony of opinions on the matter, but I will say this: Only in California could a candidate like Arnold Schwarzenegger run for governor and be taken seriously. If he tried to pull something like that in, oh, Nebraska, they’d laugh him right back to Austria.

It’s a scary thought that Kindergarten Cop could be in charge of the 5th largest economy in the world. The decisions he makes in office could potentially affect us all.

I think Ah-nold has a pretty good shot at winning this thing. They say name-recognition is the largest deciding factor at the polls come Election Day. Whose name is more recognizable than Schwarzenegger? Well, if you can spell it, that is.

So what if the man has some skeletons in his closet. I think all of us can agree that a man who (as an actor) has performed scenes disposing enemies in some of the most gruesome ways captured on film might have a misogynist streak in him.

And don’t forget this is California we’re talking about. The state that insists on giving Robert Downey Jr. work no matter how many times he turns up stoned and passed out in the backyards of complete strangers. Arnold’s misadventures in groping look like me parking in a handicapped spot by comparison.

I’ll be monitoring the election tonight. You should too. It’ll be a fascinating and wholly terrifying examination of the democratic process.

Did you know that the Mattel Toy Company started to make some Conan the Barbarian action figures, but after viewing the film, the executives realized that they couldn’t afford to be associated with a film with such graphic sex and violence. They gave their doll blonde hair, called him “He-man”, and thus created He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.

If you’d like to see Jared give Ben Affleck a post-beatdown lecture, be sure to vote for Theater Hopper at buzzComix for a glimpse of our latest incentive sketch. Professor Jared teaches Mr. Affleck about the differences between holidays!

I don’t really have much to say about Surviving Christmas that I didn’t already cover in Wednesday’s blog. But I knew I couldn’t let another Affleck movie slide without giving Jared a chance to take a swing at him. It’s all becoming part of the rich tapestry of Theater Hopper history.

Before I forget, everyone needs to stop and check out The Webcomic List. I recently wrote the site owner Ash about possibly moving Theater Hopper’s listing away from all the comics whose titles begin with the word “The”. I had received a couple of complaints from fans of the TH saying it was difficult to find our listing because of all the “The” comics they had to wade through.

Anyway, Ash was kind enough to honor my request, so I want to send a little traffic his way.

I really like The Webcomic List. It’s neat. It’s organized. It carries an air of non-partisanship and is alarmingly comprehensive. Everyone gets a fair shake there. If there is any web comic you can think of, it’s probably on that list.

Incidentally, if you want to check out Theater Hopper’s listing, you can view it here. Maybe you want to sneak a peek at our overall rank. Maybe you want to leave comments. That’s up to you. But now you have easy reference.

Anyway, that’s about it for me today. Cami and I are staying home this weekend, so I’m hoping to get some work done on the site. Maybe post that Truman shirt I promised you last week.

By the way, I’m still taking orders for the Spoiler shirt. That’s an on-going thing, so you don’t get confused. I just do pre-orders because I don’t have the capital to buy a bunch of shirts in advance. Never mind I don’t have the storage for them, either!

Anyway, next pre-order session ends on October 30, so get your order in today!

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I can’t tell you how long I agonized over how to write this strip. I think I came up with 5 or 6 different treatments and felt like the “silly name” approach was the least complicated. For example, I read a review for Quantum of Solace that said it had another parkour chase sequence similar to what was in Casino Royale and I was trying to find a way to make a joke out of that. No dice.

So I ended up racking my brain trying to come up with a Bond parody title that wasn’t a direct reference to either Quantum of Solace or any other Bond film like Dr. No or Goldfinger. It was really hard, for some reason. I was bugging Cami about it. I even turned to the people following me on Twitter. At one point Cami said “You’re putting WAY too much thought into this” and she was right. But my mind was on a loop and I couldn’t get out.

This is where it would be extremely advantageous to be part of some kind of comedy-writing team. You could take a completely terrible idea and bounce it off of others until it became completely medicore idea. Hey, it works on MadTV.

I made a joke about Quantum of Solace earlier in the year and really wanted to use the line “it sounds like a math problem again” because, to me, it really sounds like one. But I’ll make due with an Ignar Bergman reference instead.

The title really isn’t a sticking point for me, though. It’s just the most obvious thing to make fun of without having actually seen the movie. First appearances count for a lot, do they not?

For what it’s worth Quantum of Solace was a title that Bond creator Ian Fleming used for a short story that was part of a collection of short stories titled under For Your Eyes Only. Of course, people recognize the title of For Your Eyes Only as that of the 1981 movie starring Roger Moore. The point is that Quantum of Solace wasn’t plucked out of thin air during some marketing meeting, but is actually a throwback to the original Fleming stories as a means to honor the franchise in a similar manner to Casino Royale in 2005.

I think that’s a good thing. Obviously stripping things down worked for them in Casino Royale. I’ve read in reviews that Quantum of Solace literally picks up right were Casino Royale left off. So they’re not taking any chances with the franchise flying off in another direction.

But, at the same time, I kind of miss the tongue-in-cheek randiness of the Roger Moore era. I mean, Octopussy is actually a very terrible title, but it’s also very evocative. Not so grim and serious. I guess I just find it interesting how Bond continues to reflect the tone of society throughout the years. Daniel Craig’s version is much more angry and self-destructive. I’ve read a few articles that explore that as well as the wider phenomenon in modern action movie that don’t project the ideal of physical strength and brutality like they did in the 80’s. But, instead, reflect the inner torment of driven individuals. The next great war will be one of the mind. How does Bond – a relic of the Cold War – fit into that New World Order? Easy. Make him Jason Bourne.

Ooo! Snap! I WENT there!

Anyway, that’s it for me. Just wanted to encourage you guys to check out Monday’s recording of The Triple Feature. We talked about Role Models, JCVD and Kung-Fu Panda (now out on DVD) and I thought we put together a really good show. Lively discussion and hit on some great topics. Had a blast recording it and I really want you guys to check it out. You can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes as well, if you’re interested. But if you haven’t listened before, give it a try!

First things first, I have to apologize for the lateness of this comic.

I started working on it Sunday night and was distracted by world events. I’m sure you know of which I speak. I tried picking up the pencil again on Monday night and was wrestling with the damn thing for so long, finishing it became impossible.

I’ll say this – trying to figure out how to draw someone about to swing a hammer with two fists is not something my brain is wired for. It’s like drawing feet for me, or something.

Of course I figured out entirely too late that looking at reference photos of baseball players would have been perfect. But I managed to finish the comic Tuesday night. And here we are! I’m actually kind of pleased with how it turned out. The art, I mean. I don’t know exactly what’s going on with the script. Just another comic where I mess around with wordplay for no real reason.

Not to belabor the point, but it’s not acceptable for me to be late with these comics and it makes me feel sick that it went down this way. I’m doing one comic a week. ONE! I used to do three comics a week, sometimes five – many of them much funnier than this one.

Sure, my life is much different now than it was 8.5 years ago when I started this thing. I didn’t have kids. I was still in my 20’s. I could stay up until 2:00 in the morning and bounce back, ready for work the next day on 4 hours of sleep. Not anymore, man. That’s for sure.

But still, there’s no reason that I can’t use the week prior to a comic to develop an idea, sketch it out in stages and finish at a more leisurely pace. If anything, the wider berth between comics should result in IMPROVED quality.

Basically it comes down to poor time management. I need to do a better job of looking forward and setting aside time to draw during the week so I don’t get caught in a situation where I’m scrambling to put something together 2 hours before it’s “due.” That’s a bad habit I developed from back in the days when I was producing 3 or 5 comics a week. Running and gunning it because I had to, but also because I could.

I wish I could relate to you the low-level of depression I experienced Monday night when I knew I wasn’t going to be able to finish the comic. I’ve been doing this for so long, blowing deadlines is more than just letting you guys down. I let myself down and it sucks. Producing this stuff should have gotten easier over time, not harder.

I think what makes it particularly pathetic is that on Monday, I renewed the TheaterHopper.com domain name for another 2 years. I posted as much on Facebook. Casually, in fact. I posted that otherwise meaningless bit of information because I literally had nothing else to talk about.

32 people “liked” that update. 3 people commented their enthusiasm. It made me feel good, but undeserving.

I’ll confess something to you. I don’t know how long I can continue to do Theater Hopper. Originally I thought 5 years would be a nice, round number. Then I thought I would stop after I had kids. By August of next year, I will have been doing this for almost 10 years. Maybe that would be a good time to stop?

If I had my druthers, I’d do Theater Hopper every day. I have fun doing it. But life gets in the way more than it used to and I still feel chained down by “rules” I established for myself when I first started this thing nearly a decade ago.

Yeah, the comic moves and breathes and changes along with my ability and circumstances. But it doesn’t mean I still don’t get bummed out when I can live up to the promises I’ve made to myself and to you. I look at these failings (which have been happening more and more lately) and I wonder if I deserve to be in the game.

But at the same time, I think to myself “If I can just hang on a little longer. The kids will be older, maybe a little more independent and there will be more time for these things.” I don’t know if that’s wishful thinking or not.

Part of me wonders if Theater Hopper is the right venue for me to express myself anymore. I don’t see very many movies these days. Commenting on them makes me feel inauthentic. For years I’ve toyed with the idea of doing a journal comic. I think it would be freeing to write comics about my life, unencumbered by scheduled updates. But my Midwestern upbringing makes me feel like a journal comic would be narcissistic and shallow.

I’ll tell you this much… not only did I renew Theater Hopper’s domain on Monday, but I renewed the domain of the journal comic I’ve been dreaming about for the last few years. I don’t know if I’ll ever do anything with it. I guess it’s just nice to know I have it. Like insurance, or something.

I’m sorry about this. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I feel like I’m dumping my problems in your lap. But if feels good to write this, to get it off of my mind. Writing it down will go a long way to help me from continuing to beat myself up about it. I guess it doesn’t leave a lot of room to talk about Thor, but I’m not too upset about it. Are you?